On Sunday (31st March), the Indian pacer Ishant Sharma revealed one of his favourite memories in his cricket career.
Since his international debut in May 2007, Ishant Sharma has played 184 international matches and has picked up 390 wickets. The 30-year-old right-arm tall pacer has played 90 Tests, 80 ODIs and 14 T20Is where he has taken 267, 115 and eight wickets respectively.
Out of those, Ishant Sharma has claimed 43 wickets in 12 Tests on English soil. At present, he is the joint most number of Test wicket-taker as an Indian bowler on English soil. The legendary Indian cricketer Kapil Dev also picked up 43 Test wickets (13 Tests) in England.
Talking about one of his favourite memories, Ishant Sharma chose his performance in the 2014 Lords’ Test. On Sunday morning, the right-arm pacer revealed this through his post on his official Twitter account.
Throwback to England V/S India Lords Test in 2014. It is one of my favourite memories, when I took a tally of 43 wickets in England. It's a memory, attached and close to my heart. ?? #Lords #2014 pic.twitter.com/wRbitBelJR
— Ishant Sharma (@ImIshant) March 31, 2019
In that Test match, Ishant Sharma guided the Indian national cricket team to a famous victory through his incredible bowling performance in the fourth innings . While Ishant Sharma failed to pick up at least one wicket during England’s first innings of that Test match, he had the bowling figures of 23-6-74-7 in the fourth innings of that Test match.
It is still the best bowling figures in a Test innings by an Indian bowler in England. With that special bowling performance, Ishant Sharma broke a 78-year-old record. The former Indian pacer Amar Singh was the previous record holder with the bowling figures of 25.1-11-35-6 at Lord’s in June 1936.
The brief story of the 2014 Lord’s Test
Coming back to the 2014 Lord’s Test, it was the second Test of five-match Test series between England and India that started on 17th July 2014. Earlier, they played the opening Test of that series at Nottingham which ended in a draw.
England captain Alastair Cook decided to field first after winning the toss in the Lord’s Test. With the help of Ajinkya Rahane‘s brilliant century (103 runs), India scored 295 runs in the first innings.
In reply, England scored 319 runs in their first innings before losing all wickets. Gary Ballance scored 110 runs while Liam Plunkett played a crucial innings of unbeaten 55 runs.
India started their second innings by trailing 24 runs and managed to score 342 runs. The Indian opener Murali Vijay scored 95 runs while the lower-order batsmen Ravindra Jadeja (68 runs) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (52 runs) also played some crucial innings.
Chasing down the 319 runs target in the fourth innings, England was bundled out for 223 runs. Ishant Sharma dominated on the final day of that Test match and guided India to the comfortable victory. India won that match by 95 runs while Ishant Sharma won the Player of the Match award for lethal bowling in the fourth innings.